March 29, 2018
San Jose, Calif. - Sophomore second baseman Cassidy Clark drove in San José State softball's first three runs against the UNLV Rebels propelling the Spartans to a 4-1 victory on Thursday afternoon.
With the win, the Spartans improve to 22-10, 6-1 in Mountain West play. UNLV is now 20-11, 3-4 in conference action.
Clark, who leads the team with a .402 batting average, got the Spartans on the board in the third. After Alyssa Avila walked to open the inning, Emma Entzminger (2-for-4, R, 2B) doubled to right center to put runners on second and third. Two batters later, Clark lifted a sacrifice fly to center scoring Avila and staking SJSU to a 1-0 lead.
In the fifth, with a runner on first and one out, Entzminger singled up the middle to put Spartans on the corners. Entzminger then stole second and two batters later Clark (1-for-2, R, 3RBI) singled in two runs to push the San José State lead to 3-0.
Following Clark's single, Georgia Blair (1-for-3) singled and for the second time in the inning, SJSU had runners on the corners. Brittany Abacherli (1-for-3, RBI, 2B) then jumped on the first pitch she saw and roped it down the left field line to plate Clark and make it 4-0. Abacherli's hit spelled the end of the day for UNLV starter Janine Petmecky. She gave up seven hits, four runs and struck out three and took the loss dropping her record to 12-4 on the year.
In the circle for the Spartans, Madison Aurin (9-7) gave up just two singles through five, but ran into a spot of bother in the sixth.
After the first two batters reached base safely, on a hit by pitch and a single, Aurin induced a comebacker and cut the lead runner down at third. The next batter hit a grounder to third, where Rayohna Sagapolu stepped on the bag for the second out of the inning.
The shutout then disappeared on single up the middle, making the score 4-1, but Aurin induced another groundout to third to end the inning with two runners left on. She closed out the Rebels in the seventh to secure the victory.
With the win, Aurin improves to 4-0 in four complete game starts in Mountain West play. In 29.0 innings she has a 1.69 ERA and batters are hitting .194 off her.
The teams play game two of the three game series on Friday at noon at Mission College.
San Jose State 4, UNLV 1 (Mar 29 2018 at Santa Clara, Calif.)
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UNLV................ 000 001 0 - 1 5 2 (20-11, 3-4 MW)
San Jose State...... 001 030 X - 4 7 0 (22-10, 6-1 MW)
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Pitchers: UNLV - PETMECKY,J.; BURKE,B.(5) and STOVER,B.. San Jose State - Aurin, Madison and Avila, Alyssa.
Win-AURIN, Madison(9-7) Loss-PETMECKY,J.(12-4) T-1:54 A-103
Weather: Sunny
Game: UNLV-SJ1